Vascular aneurysms are produced when a thinning or weak spot in a vessel wall dilates eventually posing a health risk from its potential to rupture, clot, or dissect. While aneurysms can occur in any blood vessel, most occur in the aorta and peripheral arteries. The majority of aortic aneurysms occur in the abdominal aorta, usually beginning below the renal arteries and often extending into one or both of the iliac arteries. The etiology of aneurysm formation is not entirely understood, but is thought to be related to congenital thinning of the artery, atherosclerotic vessel degeneration, vessel trauma, infection, smoking, high blood pressure, and other causes leading to vessel degeneration. Left untreated, aneurysms may lead to gradual vessel expansion, thrombus formation leading to stroke or other vessel blockage, vessel rupture, shock, and eventual death.
After a successful endovascular aneurysm repair with an absence of endovascular leakage, prior art techniques use the intra-aneurysm pressure to control the exclusion of the aneurismal sac from the main blood circulation by providing hemodynamic information within the sac to determine if an additional procedure is warranted. Pressure sensors to monitor the aneurismal sac are conventionally done by monitoring a pressure gradient between the artery, such as the aorta and the aneurismal sac. But the risk of rupture is not most accurately measured from this pressure gradient, but rather from the pressure gradient between the aneurismal sac and the abdominal cavity.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide an aneurysm pressure monitoring system, which monitors the pressure gradient most likely to predict a rupture.